Barbaric North
by Ameribean
Summary: Well, for now, this is just a little ramble. The title sucks, if you have a better idea, pm me. This may later become a general record of Mongolia's "life", from beginning to now.


**AN: Before you begin, I feel it noteworthy to say that this is not modern Mongolia. This would be prehistoric Mongolia, before the Ice Age. This would be around the time the first human activity was noted in Mongolia, about 500,000 years ago. Before modern humans, that is to say- so this would be about the Neolithic age? But, anyways, since no one seems to be able to tell me where the Mongols actually _came_ from, I decided that I'd just start at the beginning. Hence, this time period.**

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A shadow in the sky, keen eyes gazed down at the earth. The same warm wind that sent it forward moved tall meadow grasses, making them sway twist, rippling waves on a grassland sea. Darkness spread as clouds covered the sun; the eagle screeched and wobbled on the current in momentary confusion before righting itself.

A feeling deep in its very_ existence_ had made it take wing that wing that day. It was the same gnawing sensation that pulled it west, an instinct flowing through its hollow bones to the tips of its feathers.

The eagle screamed again, pumping powerful wings as the wind weakened, ending its free ride. Banking into a circle, it scanned the far-below earth again, not knowing what it was hunting for, but knowing that _it had to be there_.

The clouds broke, flooding the world with light. The bird's head swiveled; something was stirring. The atmosphere had changed, heavy with energy, like the instant before a lightning storm unleashed its fury. The wind completely ceased, the clouds motionless in the sky. Antelope grazing nearby no longer moved, statues caught in the acts of rutting and nursing young. Even the rays of the sun seemed frozen. Everything was still. Everything, that is, save the eagle and the creature shifting under the ground.

Tilting its body, the eagle descended slowly, landing on the rotting trunk of a tree a short distance away from the concealed being. The closer it was, the eagle realized, the harder it was to breathe, let alone remain aloft.

The surface of the earth broke, rose, as though the land was throbbing. Soil crumbled away in clumps as whatever lay buried underneath clawed its way to the surface. It throbbed twice more before seeming to heave. As clumps of dirt fell away, something began to be revealed, and the eagle saw that this strange creature wasn't _clawing_ out of the land; it was being _pushed_ out.

Slowly it emerged, not an animal at all. It was unlike any creature the eagle had seen before - not a patch of fur, feathers, or scales on the whole of its body, its face flat and hide as dark as the dirt it was born of. But its limbs were long, torso short, and hands strangely designed and nimble. It did not move - it had been born dead.

Yet even as the eagle reached that conclusion, its dark, narrow chest heaved; the wind returned, the antelope nearby began to frolic once more.

The thing's face twisted into some expression of distress or pain, and then -

- then his eyes opened, strong and sudden, dark as space and just as void, a hunter's pair keen and all-seeing. His demanding gaze locked on the eagle's; fear and loyalty filled the bird. Fear of what this being was, and the magnetic tugs to forever serve it.

In the end, fear proved more powerful, and the eagle took wing swiftly, fleeing but forever altered. For all its life it would feel that piercing stare, and so would its children.

The newborn, however, had eyes no longer for the bird, his proposal rejected. Nor did he have any desire to remain in the meadow, for an invisible pull of his own drew him elsewhere. Firm eyes set on the vast forest- _his forest_- he tried to rise to his feet and failed. Crawling and stumbling, this creature, born of fragmented Time and sweet meadow winds, with supple earth for flesh and bones of stone, went to his People.

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**AN: For those of you who are confused -**

**Time had literally stopped. Frozen. That is when these events took place, and that's why nothing but Mongolia and the eagle was moving. He wasn't stuck under the ground like a fossil, either. He was literally _made of the Earth_. His bones were formed from stones. His skin from the ground. And the like. I didn't know what else to do - no one would have "fathered" or "mothered" Mongolia, like it happens for some nations (I guess). So how was he formed? This is my answer to that.**


End file.
